Sunday, July 5, 2009

Charts Update

The performance chart looks at the games since June 1st, so it shows the mid-month losing stretch and the late June - early July winning streak. As before, the last bar is the number for the entire season. That is, the team OPS for the season is .750, and our opponents’ OPS (a measure of how well our pitchers are doing as a group) is .707 (charted as a negative number so the closer to the base line the better our pitchers are doing). The trend line is a simple 5-game moving average. The good: the hitting trend is up, way up, above the season number. That reflects all the homers recently, but it also reflects better plate discipline since OPS includes how often a batter walks (and/or gets hit by a pitch). The not-so-good: the pitching trend line is down. More than anything else, I think that is essentially turmoil in the pitching staff. We’ve had lots of different pitchers on the mound over the last month -- 20 different pitchers in Bulls uniform since the first of June. Even though I’m somewhat skeptical of catcher John Jaso’s talents, you’ve got to admit that figuring out to handle 20 different guys is quite a challenge.

For the pitching chart, I’m showing only the pitchers on the roster today (as of about 11 am, it could change at any minute). The sample sizes are bizarre, so this chart isn’t really of much use except to show that a few have become stalwarts both as starters and relievers. Specifically: Davis, Hernandez, Cromer, and, probably Sonnanstine form a pretty formidable starting crew. As relievers we’ve got Childers, Thayer, and Bateman who are very solid. No way to tell if Houser will work out. We’ll see. Similarly for Meloan. He has a good rep and it will take much more than one inning in a blown out game to see what he’s got.